Convulsive hiperreflexivity “and other neurological phenomena in establishing the psychological state of the patient

Abstract

Introduction: There is a correlation between the emotional state of a person and some objective manifestations. As usual, the neurological exam doesn’t permit us to make some concerns about the psychological state of the person. The aim for this study is to show if there is any relation between some neurological signs, especially patellar reflexes and the psychological state of the patient. The term “ Convulsive hiperreflexivity “ is used to describe the state when the refractory period of the patellar reflexes is shortened to the degree that during quick successive beats the leg remains suspended in the air and doesn’t return to it’s original position. The term “Semiconvulsive hiperreflexivity” is used to describe the state when the refractory period is shortened to a observable degree, but the leg comes to its initial position after some period of time. Materials and methods: The study was made upon 114 patients with mood disorders, from which 80 (70,2 %) women and 34 (29,8 %) men. They were divided into 5 groups, according to how intense were their patellar reflexes: low, medium, high, “semiconvulsive”, “convulsive”. There were analyzed their response to these questionnaires: SCL-90, Spilberger’s anxiety test, Beck’s depressiontest, Nijmegen’s questionnaire, questionnaire for somatoform reactions, questionnaire for respiratory dysfunction. Discussion results: There was found that people with higher reflexes tend to have lower scores in SCL-90 and higher scores on Spilberger’s anxiety test, Beck’s depression test, Nijmegen’s questionnaire, questionnaire for somatoform reactions and questionnaire for respiratory dysfunction, but there was obtained a significant difference only between people with “semiconvulsive” reflexes and “convulsive” ones on Nijmegen questionnaire (M=21,77 +-6,9 and M=27,46 +-11,7 respectively with p<0,05) Conclusion: Although there are some visible tendencies in psychological tests for people with different intensity of patellar reflexes, there isn’t a direct correlation between reflexes intensity and psychological profile in patients with mood disorders.